Alice in Wonderland

Charming exhibition at the British Library looking at the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice in Wonderland.

The whole display was beautiful with a good introduction to the story told via a maze of display with “Eat me” signs and quotes and illustrations from the book.

The first main section then looked at how the book was written and published. It started with the original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Underground” as it was first called, given to Alice Liddell following the story being made up for her and her sisters on a picnic. Next to it was Carroll’s diary entry for the day which he later went back an annotated to point of the story mentioned was Alice. It was so moving to see these two pieces together. It also talked about how out vision of Alice was created by Tenniel and the show included some of the original wood blocks found by the published MacMillan in 1985.

The other section looked at how each generation had adopted the story and in particular how the different illustrations reflected the period they were created in. Copyright expired in 1907 so there has been 100 years of reinterpretation. I loved some of the 1960s psychedelic interpretations. It also showed how it is often used by satirists.

Closes on 17 April 2016.

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